Thursday, August 28, 2014

These are the days of our lives ... not to be confused with the soap opera of the same name, though in some ways the pace of progress ("sands through the hourglass") keeps a fellow on the edge of his seat, waiting for something, ANYTHING to happen.

Here we are, nearly a year into the restoration of the CallAir Cadet, and I keep staring at the same stripped wings, the same bare airframe day after day, week after week.

There is progress, however. The old door (on the left) had to be rebuilt and the new door (right) is being fitted to its rightful place. Malcolm is a very thoughtful fellow and suggested a shallow chart pocket be incorporated into the new door and that will be done. It's things like that in a cockpit that begs for storage space which lend a great deal of weight to the adage "haste makes waste", or in this case, "haste wastes an opportunity to make things just a wee bit better than they were before" and why I am not prone to champing at the bit to get this thing done NOW.

The wood in the old window frames was pretty well shot, so Malcolm made new frames that allow more room for plexiglas area. Again, it's little things like that that keep me in a positive frame of mind as the calendar ticks off day after day. The fuel tank has been cleaned and is almost ready to go back into the fuselage (whenever THAT is ready). The whole is, indeed, the sum of its parts and Malcolm made sure I understood in the beginning that it would seem at times that no progress was being made. He was right.

One of these days, this old bird will come back to life and I, for one, will rejoice. In the meantime,

... Woody and I ply the skyways of Central Florida in search of food, fun and frolic amid others who do the same.